We’d like to thank High Country News for highlighting Utah’s redrock wilderness and recognizing the value of protecting this uncommon landscape. However, we disagree with some of HCN Associate Editor Matt Jenkins’ essay which criticizes Utah wilderness advocates based on an erroneous perception that there is a stalemate on Utah Bureau of Land Management (BLM) […]
Essays
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
When yesterday’s garbage becomes today’s collectible
To get to Glass Beach, you turn toward the ocean at the Denny’s on the outskirts of Fort Bragg, Calif., and drive down the lane to park. Signage is minimal. This is not Big Sur. The day we go, two local guys drive up and park next to us in a Volvo that has seen […]
Posted inWotr
Lewis and Clark and the short view of Western history
If American history west of the Mississippi begins with Lewis and Clark, then the history of the United States seems pretty simple: “Indians owned the West, and then they lost it.” History is never so simple. That some of the people Lewis and Clark met had “never seen a white man” did not mean they […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 2004: When a Boom is a Bust
Occupying less
This excerpt from Solace by Mary Sojourner has been removed from High Country News Web Archives as the request of Scribner, the publisher. We are very sorry for any inconvenience this creates for our readers. If you need access to this essay, hard-copy back issues of High Country News are sometimes available. Email circulation@hcn.org to […]
Posted inWotr
This is no time to step back from the Roadless Rule
While researching a new book last spring, I had the opportunity and pleasure of interviewing Dale Bosworth, chief of the Forest Service. I found him to be an honest, straightforward, forthcoming, and, at times, courageous man. So when I read that he had agreed to the repeal of the Clinton-era Roadless Rule on our national […]
Posted inWotr
Let the states broker roadless lands — it’s the democratic way
This July, the U.S. Forest Service proposed a new administrative rule dealing with the controversial issue of roadless areas in national forests. Environmental groups reacted as you might expect. For example, a “personal” spam I received from John Adams at the Natural Resources Defense Council warned that the Bush administration “is lining up massive timber […]
Posted inWotr
When yesterday’s garbage becomes today’s collectibles
To get to Glass Beach, you turn towards the ocean at the Denny’s on the outskirts of Ft. Bragg, Calif., and drive down the lane to park. Signage is minimal. This is not Big Sur. The day we go, two local guys drive up and park next to us in a Volvo that has seen […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 2004: When a Boom is a Bust
Failure of leadership, not a lack of water, dooms the Klamath River
Unfortunately, it’s business as usual in the Klamath River watershed, where all the conditions are in place for yet another fish kill similar to the one that claimed at least 34,000 salmon in the fall of 2002 (HCN, 6/23/03: Sound science goes sour). It’s another dry year, with the same low river flows, and water […]
Posted inWotr
The bear has been misleading people for 60 years
Smokey Bear celebrated his 60th birthday this summer, and the ageless advertising icon wandered out of the woods for an elaborate birthday bash. He was feted by a crowd that included Dale Bosworth, chief of the U.S. Forest Service, and children of firefighters who sang happy birthday to him. Smokey, who never speaks, was also […]
Posted inWotr
Give a cheer for Winnebagoes
This is America: You can drive just about any kind of gas-guzzling, hydrocarbon-spewing, rust exhibit you want — unless you drive a recreational vehicle, otherwise disdained as an “RV.” Among the pundits of political correctness, driving an RV puts you one social notch above suspected terrorist. Sure, RVs are big, ugly, get notoriously poor mileage […]
Posted inWotr
Sometimes, it takes a tourist
One day early in the summer, my husband, Mike, and I were working on our place, a few irrigated acres carved from Wyoming’s high desert. Tree limbs lay scattered from a recent tree trimming, manure was heaped in the corral. The last thing we needed was a telephone call from a stranger. He spoke with […]
Posted inWotr
Another fish kill on the Klamath seems to be coming
Unfortunately, it’s business as usual in the Klamath watershed, where all the conditions are in place for yet another fish kill similar to the one that occurred in the fall of 2002. It’s another dry year, with the same low flows in the river that caused the deaths of at least 34,000 salmon two years […]
Posted inWotr
For wilderness, small can be beautiful
As the 40th anniversary of the Wilderness Act approaches Sept. 3, there is a temptation to talk about iconic places such as the John Muir Wilderness in California or the Bob Marshall in Montana. But out in the middle of a worked-over oil and gas patch south of Vernal, Utah, lies the White River, a […]
Posted inWotr
When the night sky provides free entertainment
One night this August, my husband Richard and I woke at 3:30 am and headed groggily outside to our back deck to watch for meteors. As I stepped out the door, Richard said, “There’s one!” I looked overhead and caught the tail end of a white line fading in the black sky over our small […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Fees and our forests don’t always fit
The next time you visit your local public library, drive an interstate highway through the West or attend a city council meeting, imagine how frustrated and upset you’d be if you were charged a fee for the privilege of doing so. In spite of the tax dollars you already pay to support these entities, imagine […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
“W” in 2004: Taking stock of wilderness at 40
As the 40th anniversary of the Wilderness Act approaches, this Sept. 3, there is an overwhelming temptation to talk about iconic places like the John Muir Wilderness in California or the Bob Marshall in Montana. But out in the middle of a worked-over oil and gas patch south of Vernal, Utah, lies a place that […]
Posted inWotr
Western utilities beware: Coal is a risky business
It wasn’t long ago that I got one of those flyers about rates that comes with my bill from Xcel Energy, formerly Public Service Co. and now one of the country’s largest utilities, serving much of Colorado and several other Western states. I knew that Xcel was planning on building a huge and expensive coal-fired […]
Posted inWotr
How a resort town loses its soul
If not paradise, Aspen during the summer comes close. The mountains are dazzling, the gussied-up Victorian homes beguiling. The musical menu is rich, and a Nobel or Pulitzer prize-winner lectures nearly every evening. Everywhere are trails. It’s a heaven for tourists. But Aspen is no longer a tourist town in the conventional sense. A new […]
Posted inWotr
At least life on the frontier wasn’t boring
I began thinking about the phenomenon we call boredom while watching public-television reruns of a provocative series called Frontier House. Its creators took three American families and placed them in the Montana wilderness for five months, from late spring to early fall. Then the families pretended it was 1883. They built log cabins and corrals, […]
Posted inWotr
Who took the ‘farm’ out of the Farm Bureau?
It’s an organization “preying upon the very people it claimed to help,” said Frances Ohmstede, 40 years ago, about the American Farm Bureau Federation. “Its policies lead rural America further and further into debt and poverty,” said her husband, Bryce. “It’s a financial empire built for their own benefit,” added Alfred Schutte, the Ohmstedes’ friend […]